It has long been recognized that articles such as fruit should be protectively packaged to prevent damage in shipping. Articles such as fruit are normally packaged in large containers. More recently, fruit, even such fruit as oranges and grapefruit, have been packaged in separate compartments in larger containers for damage free handling during shipping. By packaging in this manner the fruit can be shipped great distances without damage.
As is obvious, when packaging fruit it is desirable to maintain the fruit out of contact with each other so that during shipping they will not be abraded and seriously damaged by virtue of repeated rubbing against each other. When fruit is shipped over large distances, the fruit may be rubbed against each other literally thousands of times. This has resulted in substantial losses.
Typical packaging operations currently being employed pack fruits at random in a container after which the container is sealed and transported from where it is grown to the consumer. Whatever the distance travelled from orchard to consumer, whether it be dozens of miles or thousands of miles, the fruit does become damaged to some extent and in some instances the loss rate ran as high as ten, twenty and even thirty percent. This is obviously very disadvantageous from a cost standpoint.
Fruit has been manually packaged in trays, such as pulp trays, which of course is better than loose packing. This is expensive.
It is obvious that any method and apparatus capable of economically, efficiently and automatically packaging fruit while maintaining the fruit completely separate from each other would be very desirable. Such an arrangement prevents the substantial damage that inevitably occurs when boxes of fruit are subject to the abrading they receive when the boxes are shaken and jarred during transport.
It has long been recognized that if fruit were packaged in a manner such that they are totally separated from adjacent fruit by the utilization of honeycomb material that it would be highly advantageous. Honeycomb has been used for packaging but the use of such material has essentially been as part of a manual operation and this has been a slow and very costly procedure. Essentially this type of packing has been accomplished by manually expanding the honeycomb material and holding the honeycomb in an expanded position while the fruit is manually inserted. The industry has long been looking for a fully automatic, damage preventing, packaging system that is low in cost, operates at a high speed, and is relatively simple in design. The desired aim is to provide total internal protection for the product being packaged. That is to say, the article must be protected from pressures that would act to bruise or crush the product. A machine that can automatically package products in honeycomb capsules at low cost, high speed and efficient manner would be the answer to a long-felt need.
The advantage of using honeycomb material is that it provides a very strong configuration and has a very high strength to weight ratio compared to other products on the market. The high column strength of honeycomb results in the loads carried by the honeycomb material being distributed over a series of braced columns. It is this inherent structural geometry that makes honeycombs such desirable material for use in packaging. The cells of the honeycomb material act to isolate the articles disposed therein from adjacent articles. In the instant application the honeycomb material is made up of a relatively high density Kraft paper, but it can, of course, be made of recycled paper, plastic, or other suitable materials.
One packaging machine that has made the use of honeycomb effective and advantageous is that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,802.
The present invention is capable of more effectively meeting industry needs in that it will automatically serve to load a carton with a layer of fruit, wherein each of the fruits will be encapsulated in its own cell and fully protected from damage by contact with other fruits in the container. To this end, a layer of fruit is both placed into cells of expanded honeycomb and the carton is then formed automatically about the fruit-filled honeycomb. This manner of packing within a carton results in a total encapsulation of the articles being packaged. It provides a completed carton which may be stacked, while substantially eliminating the possibility of damaging fruit contained in the bottom cartons of a stack of such cartons.